City may have to make cuts to balance 2014 budget

In a ruling today, Hamilton County Judge Robert Winkler
said the city will have to allow for a referendum on the parking plan
and imposed a permanent injunction pending the outcome of a referendum.
The ruling means the city may be unable to rely on the
parking plan to balance fiscal year 2014’s budget, and the city may be forced to find cuts elsewhere by July 1, when the new budget will kick in.The ruling may be appealed, but City Solicitor John Curp says he is not aware of any filing yet. He says Mayor Mark Mallory and the city administration plan to hold a press conference later this afternoon to discuss the ruling in further detail.For opponents of the parking plan, the ruling comes as a
big victory that will allow them to put the parking plan on the ballot if they gather enough eligible petition signatures by April 5.
For the city, the ruling potentially leaves a $25.8 million hole in the 2014 budget. When the restraining order was extended for two weeks on March 20, city spokesperson Meg Olberding told CityBeat the delays were causing the city to approach a “pressure point”: “We respect the court's right to do that (the
extension), and know that every day that we cannot make the parking deal
happen is a day that we are closer to having to lay people off.”In the past, City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. said the plan will force the city to lay off 344 employees,
including 80 firefighter and 189 police positions. But opponents argue
there are ways to solve the budget without laying people off. As an alternative to the parking plan, Councilman Chris Seelbach proposed Plan S,
which would redirect $7.5 million in casino revenue to help balance the deficit, cut $5 million based on the results of the
city's priority-driven budgeting process and put two charter amendments
on the ballot that, if approved, would include up to a $10-per-month
trash fee and increase the city's admissions tax by 2 percent.
City Council approved the parking plan on March 6 to lease
the city’s parking assets to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development
Authority to help balance the budget for the next two fiscal years and
fund more than $100 million in development projects, including the
creation of a downtown grocery store and more than 300 luxury apartments
("Parking Stimulus," issue of Feb. 27).
Opponents of the parking plan say they’re concerned the
city will cede too much control over its parking assets and cause
parking rates to skyrocket. The city says rate increases are initially
capped at 3 percent or inflation — whichever is higher.
But the rates can change with a unanimous vote from a
special committee, approval from the city manager and a final nod from
the Port Authority. The special committee would comprise of four people
appointed by the Port Authority and one appointed by the city manager.
The ruling comes after the city and opponents of the parking plan met in court on March 15 to discuss whether the plan is subject to referendum.
Curt Hartmann, an attorney who represents the Coalition
Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) and opponents of the
parking plan, said the city charter is vague on its definition of
emergency clauses, and legal precedent supports siding with voters’
right to referendum when there is ambiguity.
The city cited state law to argue emergency clauses, which
remove a 30-day waiting period on legislation, eliminate the
possibility of referendum. Terry Nestor, who represented the city, said
legal precedent requires the city to defer to state law as long as state
law is not contradicted in the city charter.
With his decision, Winkler sided with opponents of the
parking plan. He wrote in the ruling, “If the people of Cincinnati had
intended to exempt emergency legislation from their referendum powers,
they could have done so when adopting Article II, Section 3 of the City
Charter.”
The parking plan is one of the few issues dividing Democratic
mayoral candidates John Cranley and Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls. Cranley opposes the plan, while Qualls supports it.

Financial giant Western & Southern
last week accused city officials and other Anna Louise Inn advocates of
repeatedly deceiving the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) to obtain federal funds for the Inn’s long-awaited, $13 million
renovation.

More than 16,000 pig carcasses retrieved from Shanghai’s
Huangpu River — likely dumped by farmers unwilling to make the
investments to safely dispose of the bodies — have Chinese officials
concerned about the safety of Shanghai’s tap water. WORLD -2

Report found state has cut local government funding by nearly 50 percent since 2010

With the support of local officials from around the state, Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is launching a website called ProtectMyOhio.com to organize efforts to restore local government funding cut during Gov. John Kasich’s time in office.
Speaking during a phone conference today, Sittenfeld, Dayton
Commissioner and mayoral candidate Nan Whaley, Columbus Councilman Zach
Klein and Toledo Councilman and mayoral candidate Joe McNamara described
how state funding cuts have forced cities and counties to cut services.
“What we’re really trying to do today is speak up and
sound the alarm about the governor’s ongoing raid on the Local
Government Fund,” Sittenfeld said. “Over the last four years, the
governor has taken away $3 billion in local government funding. This
year alone, municipalities across Ohio are going to receive nearly $1
billion less than they previously would have.”
He added, “This is the exact same money that cities,
villages and townships used to keep cops in the street, staff our fire
departments, fix the potholes and some of the other basic services that
citizens rightly expect and the local governments are the ones
responsible for delivering.”
In the past, the Kasich administration has argued the cuts
were necessary. When previously asked about cuts to education and other
state funding, Rob Nichols, Kasich’s spokesperson, told CityBeat, “The reality is we walked into an $8 billion budget deficit. … We had to fix that.”
But the 2014-2015 budget is not under the fiscal pressures Kasich experienced when he took office, and the governor is pursuing $1.4 billion in tax cuts over the next three years,
which he argues will help spur small businesses around the
state. During the phone conference, local officials said the revenue going to tax cuts
would be better used to return funds to local governments.
Sittenfeld says the cuts have left Cincinnati with $12
million less per year. “That is the difference between us having our
first police recruit class in nearly six years versus not having it,” he
said. “It’s the difference between enduring dangerous fire engine
brownouts versus not having to do so.”
Klein, who represented Columbus in the call,
said the cuts have amounted to nearly $30 million for his city, which he
said is enough money to help renovate nearly all the city’s recreation
centers, parks and pools.
“No one is spared,” Klein said. “Everyone is getting cut
across the state, and every neighborhood — no matter if you’re in a
small village or in a large city like Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo or
Dayton — (is) at some level feeling the effects of the cuts, whether
it’s actual cuts in services or what could be investments in
neighborhoods.”
Klein said the cuts, which have been carried out by a
Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature, contradict
values espoused by national Republicans. At the federal level,
Republicans typically argue that states should be given more say in
running programs like Medicaid, but Ohio Republicans don’t seem to share
an interest in passing money down to more local governments, according
to Klein.
Some state officials have previously argued that it’s not
the state’s responsibility to take care of local governments, but
Sittenfeld says it’s unfair to not give money back to the cities:
“Cincinnati is a major economic engine for the entire state. We’re
sending a lot of money to Columbus, so I think it’s fair to say we would
like some of that money back. John Kasich doesn’t have to fill the
potholes, and John Kasich doesn’t have to put a cop on the street.”
Whaley, who represented Dayton in the call, said, “There’s
a county perspective on this as well. The counties would certainly say
that the unfunded mandates that the state legislature brings down daily
are covered by those local government funds. While (state officials)
keep on making rules for the counties to administer services and make
those efforts, it’s pretty disingenuous to say that (county officials)
don’t get a share of the income.”
A Policy Matters Ohio report found the state has cut $1.4 billion from local government funding
— nearly half of total funding — during Kasich’s time as governor. The report pinned much of that drop on the estate tax,
which was phased out at the beginning of 2013 and would have provided
$625.3 million to local governments in the 2014-2015 budget. The estate tax was
repealed in 2011 by the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature and
Kasich.
Cincinnati had structural deficit problems before Kasich
took office, but local officials argue the state’s cut have made matters
worse. When presenting his 2013 budget proposal, City Manager Milton
Dohoney Jr. said the state funding reductions cost Cincinnati $22.2
million in revenues for the year.
Kasich’s office did not return CityBeat’s phone calls for this story.
Kasich’s latest budget proposal has also been criticized by Republicans and Democrats
for tax cuts and education funding plans that benefit the wealthy and
expanding Medicaid (“Smoke and Mirrors,” issue of Feb. 20).

Deconstructing the food, games, booze and decor behind the Horseshoe, Cincinnati's first and only urban casino

We’ve already covered the social, political and economic angles of the development of the Horseshoe in previous CityBeat
issues, but for this issue, with no real agenda, we
decided to just wander a few blocks over to the Horseshoe after work to check out the behemoth and see what all
the fuss was about.

Cincinnati is home to my body and my
head. After almost 13 years, I’m grounded here thanks to a strong
network of friends and family. But, my heart, well, let’s just say it’s
holding out. Home, for my heart, is all about those extra-special
intangibles, which in part come down to movie memories.

In what feels like an effort to make life even more glum
for the baby gorilla already rejected by its mother at the Texas zoo
where it was born, Cincinnati Zoo has dubbed the recently adopted infant
“Gladys.” Gladys. CINCINNATI -2

Main Street spot is being eyed for CitiRama 2014

Leaders of a quiet Over-the-Rhine civic garden that harvests produce like peaches, tomatoes, garlic and blackberries to sell at Findlay Market are worried they could be forced to relocate after calling the same spot home since 1998. CitiRama, a partnership between the Cincinnati Homebuilders Association and the city of Cincinnati that holds annual or biannual home shows on chosen urban plots
of land, has proposed that the lot at 1718
Main St. in Over-the-Rhine, which currently houses the Eco Garden
project (run by local nonprofit Permaganic), be amended to instead house
the site for its next event, which would force the garden to
relocate. The Livable Communities Committee yesterday was presented a memo
submitted by Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls from City Manager Milton Dohoney
Jr., recommending that the Eco Garden lot, which is currently
subletted to Permaganics for its Eco Garden program by the Civic Garden
Association (CGA), be relocated to a larger area so the site can be procured for CitiRama. The parcel of land is actually owned by the city of
Cincinnati, but the city leases a number of parcels to the CGA for
their use. According to the memo, the lease between the city and
the CGA expires in 2015, but grants the city the power to terminate the
lease at any time if another use for the land arises. The area
containing the Eco Garden has been targeted as the next CitiRama site by
the city’s Department of Community Development (DCD), the main
controller of the property. According to Dohoney’s memo, should the Eco
Garden be forced to move elsewhere, the DCD would fund the garden's startup and
relocation costs. For Angela Ebner, executive director with Permaganic,
that’s not a sufficient compromise, but she’s hopeful the parties can
reach an agreement by demonstrating that the Garden's OTR existence is actually of value to CitiRama, which is seeking out forward-thinking potential homeowners invested in fostering positive urban cultural experiences. “We think they’re (CitiRama) interested in
working with us because we think they’re interested in working with that
demographic of eco-friendly people. I’m pretty certain they’ll be
accepting of the fact that we do a really good job of reflecting the
needs and values of people in the community,” she says. CitiRama's events are designed to attract potential homeowners and developers to pinpointed plots of land in hopes of reviving urban areas with new housing opportunities, but there's also a heavy focus on sustainability. The most recent CitiRama event, which opened at Virginia Place in Northside (located at the intersection of Virginia and Chase avenues), took place in Sept. 2012. The Eco Garden exists to “create experiential learning opportunities for inner-city youth to cultivate self-reliance, job skills and an entrepreneurial aptitude by cultivating a market garden to grow fresh, healthy vegetables and herbs for direct sales at Findlay Market," according to a Permaganic Facebook post. They recruit local at-risk teens for a unique job readiness program, which allows the teens to work in the garden in exchange for a stipend. Supporters of Permaganic and the Eco Garden are concerned that moving the garden would cause disrupt not just to the crops that have grown for the past several years, but also the fabric of the neighborhood, particularly the at-risk neighborhood youth who see the space as a "home away from home." Ebner and supporters are currently waiting for word from the city in hopes of moving forward on a compromise. “We want a green, peaceful, healthy world for everyone’s children,” says Ebner. “That’s the bottom line.”